(It's really not about the cup.)

J. Alfred Proof-rock

I’ve mentioned this fact before: when she was two, almost three, Frances would ask me to read to her at bedtime whatever I happened to be reading for myself at that time.

Thinking she might fall asleep faster if I read the Aeneid by Virgil — because I, myself, would — I started the epic poem. To my utter surprise, she enjoyed it. My plan really wasn’t working.

So, then, I thought about T.S. Eliot and started reading The Waste Land. I moved on from there to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In doing so, I began a nightly routine that lasted for several years.

It has been a long time since I last read Prufrock to her, but she clearly still remembers it as, the other day, she quipped, “Where’s the proof-rock? Get it, Mum?” She giggled and giggled.

She has a wonderful sense of humour that, I think, won’t be appreciated by everyone. I doubt that the children in her class have heard of T.S. Eliot yet.